


(End)Game, Set, (Re)Match

by Tallulah_Rasa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Umbrella Academy (TV), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fix-It, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 11:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21270575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah_Rasa/pseuds/Tallulah_Rasa
Summary: A set of variations, or how Endgame might have played out across a few multiverses.





	(End)Game, Set, (Re)Match

**Author's Note:**

> These four unrelated (and somewhat crack-y) Endgame fix-its include two crossovers: Avengers/Welcome to Night Vale (the first story) and MCU/Umbrella Academy (the last one). You can skip those if you're just interested in the MCU.  
I tried to explain a bit about UA in that story's intro, but it kind of defies explanation.  
Bad language throughout, and, you know, Endgame spoilers.

**1\. Accidentally**  
_Avengers/Night Vale, Tony, Steve, Cecil, Carlos, and a few Ericas. Canon Carlos/Cecil, and mistaken (YMMV) assumption of Steve/Tony. So far as I know, the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex doesn’t have a bar in "Welcome to Night Vale," but hey, anything’s possible in a town with feral librarians._

Erica had just bowled a strike, again, when two men suddenly materialized in the middle of Lane 3 at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. The two men immediately began arguing, or maybe they were just continuing the argument they’d been having; either way, no one paid the slightest attention, though the patrons who’d been using Lane 3 did move to one of the other Lane 3s. 

"Tony, if for _once_ you would just _listen_," the taller man yelled.

"No, by all means, Rogers, let’s vote on whether the only engineer in the room should operate the highly complex time travel device," the other man countered, voice rising. "Or better yet, Steve, you could just BEAT IT TO A PULP WITH A VIBRANIUM SHIELD!"

They stopped abruptly, both breathing heavily.

"I need a drink," Tony said.

"Yes, liquor always helps everything," Steve said in a voice dripping with equal parts sarcasm and disappointment. 

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the room, with the exception of the Erica who’d been scoring the previous frame, and couldn’t remember how much to add when someone bowled a split simultaneously in two dimensions.

Steve looked around then. "We’re…not in New York anymore," he said, having finally noticed that, outside the large picture windows, there were cacti and pickup trucks and what appeared to be two moons in the sky.

"But even in East Bumblefuck, everyone agrees with Captain America," Tony muttered.

Someone leaned over from the next lane then. "I’m afraid you’ve overshot East Bumblefuck by quite a bit," he said in a smooth and strangely hypnotic voice. "But quantum travel is like that, isn’t it? So hard to figure out where you’ll end up, not to mention when." He looked both ways, as though checking for secret police, and then came closer. " This is Night Vale. And I’m sorry, but the bar’s closed, what with it being a national holiday, and all." When both men just stared at him, he extended one of his hands, the one he thought of as being the friendliest. "I’m Cecil Palmer, by the way."

"Tony Stark," Tony said, as in swift progression he looked down, tilted his head, squinted, shrugged, and then shook Cecil’s hand.

"The pickle magnate?" Cecil asked, delighted.

"No, the other one," Tony said. "But Rogers over there — that’s Steve Rogers — is a —"

"_Tony_," Steve cut him off.

"How long have you two been married?" Cecil asked.

Steve’s eyes widened, but Tony just shook his head. "We don’t even usually live on the same continent," he said. "In fact, the last time we were together, he tried to kill me."

"Oh, then a _long_ time," Cecil said. "Carlos and I haven’t been married long." He gestured across the room to a good-looking man in a white lab coat, and beamed. "That’s Carlos."

Carlos, unaware of his audience, began applauding Erica, who’d just bowled another strike. 

"He…has perfect hair," Steve said, because it was true, and, as with so many things since he’d woken up in the future, he had no frame of reference for the appropriate response to his current situation.

"Accurate," Tony said, "but we need to focus on getting back home, and then stopping Thanos from wiping out half of the galaxy."

"Yes, that probably _is_ pretty important," Cecil agreed. "Under the circumstances, I’m sure Carlos and I can interrupt our holiday celebration to help you out. I mean, sure, Lee Marvin’s birthday only comes twice a year, but Thanos — well, when you have to excavate a buried Titan disruptor, get it charged, travel through time and space, and defeat an alien being wielding Infinity Stones, you have to get to Radon Canyon right away, don’t you?" He made a face. "Though…we might have to stop to set the DVR." He waved at Carlos, who looked over, smiled at Cecil, and began making his way past Erica and Erica and Erica and John Peters — you know, the farmer — to Lane 3.

Steve, who had been staring at Carlos, was now staring at Cecil.

"You…don’t seem at all fazed by…" Tony said, making a series of rapid hand movements to indicate himself, Captain America, the rift in the space-time continuum, and the idea of an alien being trying to wipe out half of all life everywhere.

"Well, Nick talks about you a lot," Cecil conceded. "The _other_ Tony Stark. And we’re kind off the beaten track here, but we do get the news."

"Nick? You know — but, wait, you know about _Thanos_?" Steve asked, frowning.

"Time works differently in Night Vale," Carlos said as he joined their group. "So…we know about him, but he hasn’t happened yet. Kind of like SUVs."

"Who’s the President?" Tony asked quickly.

"Oh, you’re a scientist!" Carlos exclaimed. "Oh, good. Listen, what do you know about gamma radiation and its application to—-"

"Maybe," Cecil broke in, "you should talk about that on the way to Radon Canyon. Time is of the essence. Or was. Or could have been. You know."

"Right," Carlos said. "I’ll drive. We just need to stop by our apartment to set the DVR."

"And we need to stop at the Ralph’s, too," Cecil added, as they headed toward the door. "I need to pick up cat food. The station’s all out."

"Ooo-kay," Tony said, as Steve blurted out, "But—"

"Just think," Cecil said dreamily over both of them. "Someday, Carlos, we might be just like them."

"I think," Carlos said seriously as they went out the door and into the parking lot, "one of them is a lot taller than either of us, Cecil."

"Well, yes," Cecil said, "but true love conquers all."

"So…you’ve got a weapon we can use against Thanos, is that right?" Tony asked.

"We are NOT a, a, a _couple_," Steve sputtered.

"Oh, yeah, I see what you mean," Carlos said, smiling at Cecil as he unlocked a Ford Fiesta and ushered everyone in.

"Love," Cecil said solemnly, "is pretty darn mysterious. Shotgun!"

Tony conceded the loss and pushed Steve, who was too dazed to resist, into the back seat. "You can say that again," he said, climbing in after nudging Steve’s legs out of the way.

As the car puttered into the night, Cecil did.

**2\. With Glorious Purpose, Sort Of**  
_MCU, Pepper, Morgan, Peter Parker, Rhodey, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, and a special guest. _

"Mommy," Morgan said, tugging at Pepper’s still pristine black skirt, "I’m not sure what to do."

Pepper took a breath. Steve made a few aborted moves, and then gave up. Peter looked sick.

"Well, it’s a very upsetting time," Rhodey said gently, carefully, bending to Morgan’s level, "and we’re all—"

"No," Morgan interrupted, as exasperated over the inability of the world at large to grasp her meaning as her father generally was.

Had been.

"There’s something I’m supposed to tell you. But to tell you, I have to say a bad word, and I’m not supposed to say that word."

"…What?" Steve said, but Morgan was focused on Pepper.

"Because Daddy said to tell you if a stranger came into the yard," Morgan continued, as single-minded as any Stark. "'Specially if the stranger said not to tell you."

Steve, Rhodey and Peter shot up from their seats, but Pepper, who was more experienced than any of them at dealing with the unexpected, waited for Morgan to finish.

"And 'specially if they had a weird hat," Morgan went on. "And Daddy showed me a picture, and I think it might be him, but Daddy said his name, and it was a bad word."

"A weird hat?" Steve and Rhodey repeated, but in different tones.

Morgan nodded, her expression clearly saying, _Did I not just say that?_ and _Why are grown-ups so slow?_

"You stay here," Steve said to Pepper and Morgan. "We’ll go check."

Morgan let her head thunk to her chest before looking up at Steve again. "You won’t know where. I’ll have to show you."

"Honey," Pepper began, "I can—"

Morgan shook her head. "He’s in the secret treehouse," she said, as though that explained everything.

"The treehouse by the pond?" Pepper asked. "We can—"

"No. The _secret_ treehouse."

"There’s… a secret treehouse?" Peter asked.

"Daddy didn’t want Mommy to worry about it," Morgan said. "It’s for 'mergencies." She pulled at Rhodey’s hand. "Come _on_. I’ll show you."

She was out the door before anyone could stop her. Pepper, Steve, Rhodey and Peter rapidly followed; Clint, who’d been on the porch, watched them all storm by and fell in after them.

Morgan skittered down the path, past the garage and a hedge and a thick screen of holly bushes, and then down a rise to a stand of small, thick branched trees, one of which had an almost invisible set of Morgan-sized footholds leading to a tiny and carefully camouflaged treehouse.

Dangling from a branch above, flailing with absolutely no grace at all, was …

"Fucking Loki!" Clint breathed.

"That’s what I was trying to tell you," Morgan said.

"Why is he…hanging there?" Steve asked hoarsely.

"Daddy had Mr. Wong do a thing," Morgan said.

"The property’s warded against magic users," Pepper explained, looking up with an assessing eye. "And I guess Tony finally figured out how to replicate Spiderman's web shooters."

"There’s…there’s a treehouse, and a secret emergency treehouse?" Steve asked, not really able to get past that.

"You’re surprised?" Rhodey asked.

"I’ve got a secret emergency treehouse at my place," Clint said.

"I really thought it was closer to the house," Pepper mused.

"If you’re all done," Loki said, trying for haughty, but, as he was strung upside down in web fluid, mostly sounding nasal.

"Didn’t Thor say he died?" Steve demanded, and everyone - even Morgan - just looked at him. "Okay, so…you’re alive," he conceded, staring up at Loki. "But why are you _here_?"

"Isn’t it obvious?" Loki said. He peered down at Morgan. "I explained it to the fledgling."

"She’s a _child_!" Steve said.

"I assumed she would understand," Loki said, disgruntled. "She is Stark’s child, is she not?"

"Are you sure you trust Wong’s work?" Rhodey asked Pepper in a loud aside.

Pepper nodded absently, though her arms went around Morgan.

The late afternoon sun glinted off her bracelets.

Clint went up the nailed steps smoothly, produced one of Nat’s knives from somewhere, and cut the strands holding Loki, who plunged to the ground.

"Do you feel better now?" Loki asked, getting up slowly and dusting himself off.

"Are you…are you here for the funeral?" Pepper asked.

"I’m here," Loki said, turning to her, but keeping Clint and Steve in his peripheral vision, "because there wasn’t supposed to _be_ a funeral. This timeline is…it’s _wrong_. Is that not obvious to all of you?" He looked from one speechless face to another. "Do you not have the _slightest_ knowledge of timeline physics? What do they _teach_ in your schools?"

"Mostly ABCs and counting to ten," Morgan offered. "And blocks, but Daddy says there’s a sad lack of basic engineering principles in my preschool."

Loki narrowed his eyes, but nodded. 

"Also, Daddy says no 'sperimental physics till I’m in second grade."

"I defer to the wisdom of your father," Loki said to her, and then he looked at Pepper. "Lady Potts, I—"

"Stark," Pepper interrupted.

Loki nodded once and began again. "Lady Stark, eleven years ago I came to Midgard, in thrall to the Mad Titan. I arranged to fail in my mission—"

"Hah. Got your ass handed to you," Clint muttered.

"Having seen what you have seen, do you truly believe Thanos’ forces could not have won that day?"

No one said anything, and Loki turned back to Pepper. "I thought I had merely put off the inevitable, but then I saw that Midgard did have a mind capable of seeing, of implementing, a plan to destroy Thanos once and for all."

"Tony," Rhodey said, with a mix of pride, resignation, and grief.

"Because his arc reactor interfered with your staff…?" Steve asked.

Loki looked at him. "You thought it was his arc reactor?"

"You threw him out a window," Pepper said, holding her hands over Morgan’s ears.

"After I gave him knowledge," Loki said. "I transferred directly to his mind knowledge that should have enabled him to defend this world and all in it. Without needing time travel, or a gauntlet, or…sacrifice. Needing, in fact, only his team. The Avengers."

"You lie," Steve said through his teeth.

"You threw him. Out. A. Window," Pepper said, as Morgan wiggled away from her.

"_After_," Loki said. "And I was fairly certain he could fly, at that point. And at any rate, I was being watched. I could hardly ask him out for a drink, could I?"

"Oh!" Morgan said. "I forgot!" She turned to Pepper. "Daddy said if Mr…Badword Loki came to the house, we had to give him something to drink."

"Something to drink?" Steve repeated weakly.

"He said he owed it. But first Mr. Badword Loki has to swear not to hurt anybody."

"What good will that do?" Clint asked darkly.

"He can’t break a swear," Morgan said. "Uncle Thor said so."

"_Uncle_ Thor?" Loki asked.

"I have lots of uncles," Morgan said.

"What does that mean, if the timeline’s wrong?" Pepper asked, grasping - as always - the essentials of the situation. "And more importantly - can we fix it?"

"I believe so," Loki said. "And I swear," he said, looking directly at Morgan, who met his eyes, "I am not here to do harm to any friend or member of your family, or to your world. I am the God of Mischief, not Evil. For mischief and chaos to matter, there must be good and order and balance in the universe, and for that to be, wrongs must be made right, and the timeline set as it should be." He straightened his shoulders and looked at Pepper. "What do you choose to do?" he asked.

Pepper looked at Rhodey, who nodded, and at Morgan, who made her _come on, already_ face, and at Clint, who snarled at Loki, but nodded, and at Steve, who muttered something about secret emergency treehouses.

"Tony had a special Scotch I think you’ll like," she said, and then she took Morgan by the hand and ushered everyone back to the house.

**3\. Dramatically**  
_Post the last battle, but…  
Steve and Tony, with all their history, so this one is a little more serious. Do I need to mention Endgame spoilers again?_

Steve gripped the porch rail, glad of something to hold onto.

"Tony Stark was…" he began, but he had to stop and swallow a few times before he could continue. "Tony was…so many things, to so many people. A builder. A brother. A…" He had to stop then, and swallow again. "A husband, and a father. But to us, to the Avengers, he was… Nat called him our heart. I would call him the best of us. He called himself a futurist, and his last act was was to ensure that we — not just all of us here, but our world, our galaxy — could have a future. I don’t know how you memorialize a sacrifice like that, but I think the best way we can honor his memory is by living well, with laughter and love, and fully embracing every day of the wonderful, amazing future he saw for us all."

He stopped then, closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to remember how to breathe. 

"That’s nice," Tony said from the porch swing, solid and haloed in the last rays of the setting sun. "A nice eulogy. Short, but—"

"I didn’t finish it," Steve admitted.

"You didn’t even deliver it," Tony observed.

"Well, it turned out you were alive, so…" Steve said.

"You saying I ruined your moment, Rogers?"

"It wasn’t a complaint," Steve said.

"Because it’s not like I had any control over it," Tony said. "I have a lot of extraordinary skills, but self-resurrection isn’t one of them."

Steve swallowed again and gripped the rail more tightly. "We thought you were dead," he said, the smell still in his nose, the image of Tony, bloody and so, so still, hovering at the back of his mind.

"You and me both," Tony said.

Steve took a ragged breath. "So…what happened?"

Tony shrugged. "Hell if I know. Loki did something. Or Strange did something. Or maybe Pepper did something — you wouldn’t believe what that woman call pull off when she puts her mind to it." He shifted uncomfortably. "Quill says…He says the stones didn’t want me."

Steve looked at him, trying to see, finally, what he’d never quite been able to see. "You think you _annoyed_ the Infinity Stones into sending you back?"

"_That’s_ the part you find unbelievable?" Tony asked.

"Well, Nat’s back, too," Steve said, with a small smile. "And you wouldn’t really call her annoying. Though she _is_ pretty scary."

Tony returned the smile, though it was a tiny, fragile thing. "So…what we’re saying is that the elemental forces of the universe, the powers that have existed since before the dawn of time, are…impatient. And easily frightened."

"And have a dramatic sense of timing," Steve added. "Don’t forget that."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"The best of us, huh?" Tony asked.

"Well, my ma told me not to speak ill of the dead," Steve said.

"Yeah," Tony said with a little laugh. "I figured."

"She also told me if I couldn’t tell the truth, I shouldn’t say anything at all."

Tony started then, but then sank back onto the swing. "Well, _that_ explains a lot."

"I didn’t mean—"

"Water. Bridge," Tony said, waving a hand. "And if the water’s polluted, and the bridge is broken, it doesn’t really matter, does it?"

"It matters," Steve said fiercely.

Tony’s head dipped. "Maybe we can agree to disagree," he said softly. "I mean, I know it’ll be the first time, but…"

"You keep…you keep saving the day," Steve said. "And then coming back, even though it seems like there’s no way, and I know…I know sometime you won’t. I’m glad that wasn’t this time, but I know that could…and then, there’s the other thing I know, and I don’t want to know, but it’s just that you keep, you know, doing it."

"Is this about being annoying…?" Tony asked, but Steve could hear that he was serious, and the kind of tired that was years in the making.

"No, it’s about you being the best of us," Steve said. "And being right about a lot of things. Not everything, but…but a lot."

"I don’t really know what to do with that, Cap," Tony said quietly.

"I think…maybe you don’t have to do anything," Steve said. "You’re an engineer at heart, I think, and so you build, and rebuild, and rebuild and…I’m a soldier. I…I fight. But maybe it’s time to stop fighting, and try something else. Like building. Or fixing. You know, for a change."

"You’re full of stirring speeches today," Tony said.

"I have to find a way to…" Steve waved a hand. "You know. Not just words."

Tony yawned. "Maybe that’s for tomorrow, huh?"

Tony’s yawn was catching, and Steve nearly cracked his jaw. "Tomorrow," he agreed. "That’s suddenly a really beautiful word."

**4\. By the Numbers**  
_Umbrella Academy/Avengers. Directly post the last ep of UA, so maybe a little spoilery, though it’s hard to tell with UA. I think this involves pretty much everybody from UA and the MCU. If you’re unfamiliar with UA, they’re seven adopted siblings with…um… unusual powers and abilities. The important ones here are that Klaus can't die (and can talk to the dead), and Allison can get people to do whatever she wants if she first says, "I heard a rumor…" (Five, Diego and Ben's talents will be apparent in context, and Luther and Vanya don't have much to do in this story.) As this story begins, the siblings have just had a hell of a day, and escaped their own world-ending catastrophe via Five’s ability to time-travel._

When they settled, Five noticed first that he was still a teenager, and that Klaus, Luther, Diego, Allison, Vanya and Ben — hey! Ben was there! — were still adults. Then he noticed that they were on the edge of a battlefield, in what was, if not Armageddon itself, almost certainly leading up to it.

"Crap," he said.

He started toward Vanya, who seemed miraculously fine, but was sidetracked by Luther and Klaus, who were both looking a little green. Well, he’d figured time travel and Luther wouldn’t be a good mix. And given the size of the battle going on around them, Klaus was probably hearing from a lot of dead people right now. Statistically, it was probably…

"Hey!" a guy with a metal arm yelled at them. "Should you be here? Are you Stark’s people?"

"Stark? Tony Stark?" Five asked. A surprising number of timelines involved Stark, or Iron Man, or people fighting for or with or against him. But this didn’t look like the Battle of New York, so the probability was—

"What’s going on?" Allison yelled, and hey, Allison had her voice again!

The guy with the metal arm had to drop out of the conversation to shoot at what looked like a mid-size flying brown whale, but a kid in a spider costume swung from nowhere, and pointed. "The big guy? That’s Thanos. He used these things called Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe. The Avengers brought everybody back like, half an hour ago, but Thanos is pissed, and now he wants to use the stones to wipe out everybody. They’re in a glove-type thing called a gauntlet. Don’t let Thanos put it on!"

He swung back into the battle while Five was still parsing that, but Allison took off immediately, right into the thick of things, right toward the towering purple creature the kid had called "Thanos." And of course Luther went after her, body-blocking everything in her way, and then Ben and Klaus exchanged a look and followed, so Five and Vanya brought up the rear.

Thanos and Iron Man and a blonde woman in a catsuit were fighting over the gauntlet, but it was clear Thanos was winning.

"Hey!" Allison yelled at Thanos. "I heard a rumor…"

"You piddling human," Thanos roared, swatting the blonde woman out of the way and knocking Stark’s Iron Man helmet off his head as he raised the gauntlet triumphantly, "I will erase your kind from—"

"…that you want to fix everything you’ve broken, and bring back every life you’ve taken, and spread peace and goodwill through the galaxy," Allison finished.

In the hush that followed — pierced only by Bucky Barnes’ "What the ever-loving _fuck?_"— Thanos slipped on the gauntlet, looked at Allison, looked at the stones, and snapped his fingers.

The Avengers Compound quietly reformed from the rubble. Downed trees straightened up, lush grass quickly covered the field, birds sang, and a host of previously dead fighters began standing up, straightening their clothes, and helping those not so quick on the uptake.

"What the hell?" Steve asked no one in particular as Thanos sat down heavily, his army following suit. The gauntlet slid off his slightly charred hand onto the new grass.

"That’s…a little anticlimactic, I have to say," Tony said. "But great, don’t get me wrong. Just…"

"Half the universe was gone?" Five broke in, grabbing a stick and scribbling something in a patch of dirt. "And then came back, all at once? That’s…I mean, the infrastructure, mathematically how can you support the—"

"Tell me about it," Tony said, immediately adding a few numbers to Five’s equations. "Food supply alone; I was trying to figure out some algorithms to even describe the scope of the problem, but then it turned out to be the end of the world, and so the math had to get back-burnered, and—"

"I heard a rumor," Allison broke in, "that you came up with a brilliant, entirely workable solution to all those problems, with no bad consequences—"

"Ma’am, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t think you realize that allowing Tony Stark free rein is—" Steve started, but Allison just looked at him, hard, and continued.

"And every person here helped you and supported your efforts," she finished.

"…probably the best possible thing we could do," Steve ended, though he looked somewhat confused as the words left his mouth.

Five was only half listening. He raised one hand to keep the sun out of his eyes as he squinted at the mass of calculations scratched into the ground at his feet. 

"That’s it!" Tony yelled, grabbing at Five’s hand. "If we can build a device to direct and concentrate sunlight onto…um, high-density, high-nutrition crops, yeah, that should speed up the germination and growth cycles, substantially cutting the time between planting and harvest, but that would allow for multiple crop rotations without stripping nutrients from the soil, and…Okay, could all the scientists please meet me in the lab?" 

The scientists all agreed, as everyone else murmured what a good idea that was, and how much they wanted to help. Well, everyone except Five, who was reformatting his equations to see if there was some way he could stay in the current timeline but age himself a few years, and Klaus, who was sidling over to the now almost-forgotten gauntlet. 

"Hey!" Carol shouted as Klaus reached for the gauntlet. "No one should have that kind of power. And using that thing will kill you! What do you think you’re doing?"

"I don’t want power," Klaus said, looking around nervously. "I just want to bring someone back from the dead." He caught Diego’s eye, and added, "Two people. Two people back from the dead. And it’s not like this purple guy’s still using it."

"He has a point, I--" Thanos began, but the thought was, quite literally, cut off, as Nebula roared up behind him swinging an outsized blade, and neatly separated his head from his body. 

There were a few seconds of stunned silence, punctuated by Thor’s slightly whiny, "_I_ wanted to do that," and Klaus, gauntlet in hand, yelling to someone clearly only he could see, "Well, it’s not like I can die _permanently_, so what’s the problem?"

When Klaus slipped the gauntlet on, Carol grabbed him, but this time she said, "I can’t die, either. And there’s someone…Dr. Lawson…"

Klaus nodded, and then Diego had a hand on his shoulder, murmuring, "Well, I can’t _drown_. And Eudora…"

Peter Quill stepped up and joined the group. "Gamora," was all he said, but he nodded at Nebula, who sniffed at him, but took his hand.

Tony joined them, and his "Nat," joined with Clint’s, but Bucky gently peeled them both away and took their place. "Super soldier," he noted. "And she’d be pissed as hell if she came back and you were both dead."

"But—" Tony began.

Bucky stared him down. "You really man enough to face Natalia when she’s pissed off?"

Clint conceded the point, but as Tony was clearly stupid enough to argue, Pepper and Clint and Rhodey dragged him back, and Bucky joined the circle around Klaus.

"Is that everybody?" Klaus asked cheerfully.

Thor stepped up then, somewhat defiantly, saying "Loki," as he added himself to the crowd.

"On three," Klaus whispered, and everyone closed their eyes.

"Carol!" Tony hissed. "Add JARVIS!"

"Three!" Klaus announced, and…

…

…

…

"Should we be seeing something?" one of the Wakandans whispered.

"Did anything happen?" Wong asked at the same time.

"That was…most unpleasant," Loki said from behind him. "Though preferable to being throttled by Thanos, so there’s that."

"Loki!" Thor roared.

"Dave!" Klaus cried.

"Eudora," Diego breathed.

"Gamora!" Quill and Nebula called.

"Mar-Vell," Carol greeted.

"…JARVIS?" Tony asked.

"Hey, Nat," Clint said.

"Who’s that?" Five asked, wrinkling his nose as a black car drove up, and a big guy with an eye patch and a long and unnecessarily dramatic black coat got out.

"Director Fury," Steve said, and then, "Why are you carrying a cat?"

"This is Goose," Fury said, as though that answered the question. "Now, I need a sit-rep, and I need it…"

He trailed off as Goose leapt from his arms towards Ben, and then sat, suddenly, at Ben’s feet. 

Goose’s head tilted quizzically. 

Goose’s mouth opened.

"Uh-oh," Fury said.

The tentacles that erupted from Goose’s mouth hovered in the air a moment and then, very gently, reached towards Ben’s stomach.

The tentacles that shot out from Ben’s stomach stopped short of Goose’s, and then inched forward to do what appeared to be the tentacle version of a fist bump.

"Okay, then," Tony said as both sets of tentacles retreated to their respective homes.

"I'm _never_ going to get used to this century," Steve said.

"It’s a lot better than some of the others," Five said.

"Is anyone else hungry?" Klaus asked.

Five wasn’t sure why so many people yelled "Shawarma!" at once, or even what that was, but clearly, Armageddon had been averted, and when Vanya caught his eye, she smiled, so for the moment, everything was okay. And for the rest of it…well, he’d figure it out.

END


End file.
